In the office-equipment context, such as copiers and printers, it is generally known to provide with each machine, a plurality of selectable paper trays, each having an identifiable type of print media therein. Different types of print media may include papers of differing sizes, letterhead, color paper, transparencies, and the like. Users may require specific types of print media such as forms or transparencies for a particular print job.
The availability of complex printing systems has greatly expanded the number of paper media types that may be specified for a particular print job depending on print engine characteristics and the quality desired. In order to accommodate the proliferation of print media types, complex printing systems need to be repeatedly reconfigured to a set of system settings optimized for a particular print media. Thus it is important to ensure an optimal work product that print system device operators manually reprogram the print system to handle different print media stocks to meet their customer's requirements. This could be a time consuming and costly process, particularly where the number of print jobs required to be reprogrammed is large.
Where the selection of available print media types is large, a print system device operator may wish to see very specific information about certain types of media displayed in detail such that one or more desired print media attributes can be selected for a given print job. Systems and methods have been developed in this art to provide users with interfaces displaying a description of print media attributes beyond basic paper-selection such as A4, Legal, etc. Certain print media stock may require specific formats of data such as margins, height, width, weight, marking characteristics, fuser temperature, electrostatic set points, transfer assist blade pressure, transfer nip pressure, ink settings, etc. requiring the configuration of print engine system settings which may vary greatly between print media types for any particular print job. Choosing the right system settings for a desired set of print media attributes may be time consuming and lead to error. End item print job products which have been run through a print system device configured to a set of system settings not optimized for a particular print media type or a set of print media attributes may lead to reduced output quality leading to an increase in customer dissatisfaction.
Furthermore, complex internal components running at very high throughput rates using configuration settings not optimized for a particular print media may even lead to device component breakdown and system failure. Thus it is important in this art to be able to properly configure a complex print system device to a set of system settings which have been optimized for a particular print media type.
In many of today's print engines, information regarding various complex system settings required for certain print media attributes is entered manually when an operator desires to run a new print job requiring a new print media. Manual entry for complex system settings can be time consuming. It may be difficult to ensure that the configuration settings were entered correctly. An incorrect system setting may not even be noticeable until a large volume of the print job has already been run. Further, it may be difficult to determine whether the existing system settings optimized for a specific set of print media attributes is current or has been updated in a timely manner as new configuration settings became available.
Useful information regarding complex system settings tailored for various print media attributes may be difficult to share in real-time across a plurality of diverse print job environments. Device operators may find it difficult to share their own tailored complex configuration settings with other operators of similar device specific print systems. Manufacturers and vendors may find it difficult to collect modified system settings for particular print media types from experienced device operators for evaluation.
Accordingly, what is needed in this art are increasingly sophisticated systems and methods for automatically retrieving and configuring a print system device to a set of device specific system settings tailored for selected print media attributes.